In electronic design, many individual wires are soldered with precise positioning on a printed circuit board. Not only must the wires be precisely positioned with very close tolerance, but they must be protected with some manner of strain relief so that the solder connection will not be broken in the event of pulling on the wire.
Many techniques for this have been used, but they tend to be relatively expensive and cumbersome. For example, electrical contacts may be placed on the wires and then locked into place on a circuit board or other electronic circuit member. However, such is both cumbersome and expensive.
In accordance with this invention, small individual wires may be positioned in predetermined relation without the use of relatively expensive connectors. Thus the positioned wires are available for further processing by connection to an electronic circuit member, with each wire occupying a precise position. This provides a significant efficiency in an electronics manufacturing process in that an entire group of individual wires, ten, twenty or more wires, may be simultaneously attached to an electronic member while being precisely positioned and protected by strain relief means, all without the need of contacts.
Accordingly , significant manufacturing advantages are provided to electronic assembly, with savings in time and money due to the wire positioning and protective function of this invention, without the need of extra contacts. Additionally, one extra connection is eliminated: the connection between the wire and the contact, with clear, significant advantages provided by such an improvement.